Contextualizing 3D Cultural Heritage

Abstract

An increasing number of cultural heritage 3D models are being made public via the 3D-party platform, ‘Sketchfab’. This is a hugely popular way to share cultural heritage with a wide audience. The British Museum’s model of the Granite head of Amenemhat III has been viewed online 61,500 times and downloaded 3,000 times (as of writing). This paper will explore Ancient History Encyclopedia’s project to include 3D models on their website, and how doing so helps contextualize an object, creating a deeper learning experience for the reader of our content and the viewer of a model.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jason Moser for developing the integration of Sketchfab models into Ancient History Encyclopedia, and Jan van der Crabben and James Weiner. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and corrections, any mistakes of course remain the author’s own. Thanks too to all the cultural heritage institutes who upload their models to Sketchfab.